Elevate EPM

Can users modify Alias names in Oracle EPM?

Short answer: yes! Groovy makes it possible for end users to update Alias names themselves.

Here’s how it works: you create a text-type Member where the Alias can be saved and picked for updating. If you’re working with multiple Alias tables, you get to decide which ones users are allowed to update.

Next, build a Webform and attach the Groovy code below to run on SAVE. It handles the member name update, and you don’t need to write extra validation logic for the Alias name — Oracle EPM takes care of that for you. Length checks, special character checks, all handled natively.

One thing worth calling out: I tested what happens when an Alias is deleted. As most of us know, Essbase stores deleted data as #missing, so I added a condition to prevent the Alias from being overwritten when that happens.

In the implementation I worked on, the requirement was to support updates to both the Default and Report Alias tables.

The Groovy Code

Attach the code to run on save in Webform . It picks up the alias value entered by the user and pushes it to the selected Alias table on the member.

A few notes on the logic:

• The #missing check is the important bit — without it, a deleted alias would try to overwrite the existing one, which isn’t what you want.
• No additional manual validation — Oracle EPM already enforces alias length and character restrictions, so the script just focuses on getting the value across cleanly.
• In this implementation, updates were required to the Default and Reporting Alias tables specifically.